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Mid-Ohio and a showdown with SI Swimsuit models await

Posted July 30, 2016

LEXINGTON, Ohio—Hey guys and gals. Hinch here, writing from Buckeye country. After taking a bit of time off, the IndyCar Series gets back to business this Sunday with the running of the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio. It goes green at 2:45 p.m. E.T. and airs on CNBC. You don’t wanna miss it.

The last time we corresponded, me and my mates on the No. 5 Arrow Electronics Schmidt Peterson machine were gearing up for my hometown race in Toronto. If you haven’t heard, I came in third. It was a huge result, equaling the season-best effort I posted in the Indy Grand Prix back in May. And it was satisfying on so many levels. Until that moment, my streak of bad luck in T.O. was staggering. I’ve had an engine blow up on me while running for a win, a throttle linkage give out before another race even started. In six years of trying, I never finished better than eighth there.

It seemed like I’d be in for a struggle again this year. The configuration of the track was changed for the first time in around three decades, which threw everyone for a loop on day one. The following morning, we opened the next practice session on a tire strategy that didn’t pay off and sunk like a stone down the time charts. But, to my team’s enormous credit, we rebounded in time for qualifying and secured sixth position—the top Honda in the field. For our plucky crew, which had endured the additional misfortune of starting the last two races from the very back of the pack, to get that high up the grid was huge.